Best way to make this part?

[mrcodewiz]

I am curious as to what the best way to make this part is. To prototype it, I am going to mill it out of a solid piece but it seems like maybe milling a flat piece first and then bending it somehow would be a more efficient use of material? It needs to be aluminum and I am not sure how aluminum reacts to bending. how would you do it?

The part is about .5" thick, about 9.5" across, and 1" high.

[easymike29]

Sure!

Gene

[mrcodewiz]

I must not have phrased the question properly. Sure, bending would be better?

[PriddyShiddy]

5052 can be bent "easily". what kind of qty are you looking at?

I would cut it flat and send it out to be bent. I spent three nights cutting and cleaning up 60x 3" round x .5" 6061 and THEN found out a local cut house would have only charged me $.75 each. never doing that again.

[mrcodewiz]

I don't know but fairly small quantity - maybe 25 or 50 to start? Is it something any machine shop should be able to do or is there some specialty I would be looking for?

[PriddyShiddy]

is it a constant radius? hard to tell on my phone

[mrcodewiz]

Yes, constant radius.

[PriddyShiddy]

pretty easy then. if the tolerances will allow for 1x.5 bar (actually around .996x.497) then call a local forming shop (my cut house does rolling and bending) and get a idea on the length they prefer,(better pricing) and roll 3 or 4 at a time then cut to length. make a jig using an extra one held in a vice (if you have the Z space) to drill the holes. just clamp the bent blanks to the jig and measure carefully. when u get one set up right I would drill and tap a block into the jig to be able to repeat the position.

thats just what I would do... I do a lot of trial and error but the jigs repeat the correct set up when I get it right

few other thoughts (more expensive) you could have the shape stamped our even waterjet from 1"sheet. both may be spendy

[mrcodewiz]

Cool. I will make sure the prototype functions correctly and then start looking around for a forming shop. Thanks for the insight, Priddy.

[fizzissist]

Izzis me or my monitor....

Looks like an Escher to me.

[Delw]

I would make them out of solid plate. bending (depending who you bring it to) wont get you perfect results, milling will plus you might induce stress into it when bending and later on down the road it will bend out of tol. .you never said what your tol is.

Besides why put all that work into it when you can make them on a mill in one shot?
if your worried about mateial savings your going to spend more money on getting them bent then your loosing on material.

if you have a cad system you can easily do many parts on one block of material for less waste.

Delw

[PriddyShiddy]

what type of machine (limits) do you have?